Human stage kills

[Kattana]

Would anyone else be interested in seeing how the game plays with humand required to get more kills, double the kills? to advance stages.
Dretches die in such vast quantitys and I always thought the whole idea of them was to have a big alien horde flinging themselves at the humans.

The way the stages are set up now aliens have to hide and wait for humans to eventualy venture out to get kills, a big horde attacking would just feed them to s3 even faster than usual, which still often happens before aliens get s2.

Another option that might help is to have dretches not count towards stage advancement after s1. and/or also not have dretches give money after s1 or s2, leaving the humans to fight against great odds with few resources in whichever hostile alien location they happen to be in.
By s3 most humans usualy have tons of money anyway, I think this would give aliens a break from the luci spam after a while, without all those easy dretch kills to pad the humans wallets.
Rushing with luci and spaming to kill any new dretches in the alien base easily gets your money back up enough to get another bs and luci to do it again, and all aliens get out of it is one of them gets a couple points for the single kill.

[Quaoar]

Every single one of your posts is talking about either making aliens more powerful or nerfing humans, despite the fact that in all the games I've ever played the win/loss for aliens or humans has been split almost perfectly down the middle. Why?

Goons eat unprepared humans for breakfast. Over and over and over. At a particular point in the game, the alien goons killing humans far overtake the humans killing dretches. Dretches are not fodder, and humans die in quite ample quantities so early on too (headshots). Not to mention aliens have no big issue in reaching S3 later than humans. I've seen aliens play pretty much an entire game "baseless", and just giving the humans runarounds the entire time until they slowly got up to S3 and wrecked the humans with tyrants.

I've never witnessed the egregious dretch feeding alien noobs do. I mean, I do, but I see them often in equal numbers with newbie rambos running into the aforementioned goons... or even dretches.

[Norfenstein]

Every single one of your posts is talking about either making aliens more powerful or nerfing humans, despite the fact that in all the games I've ever played the win/loss for aliens or humans has been split almost perfectly down the middle. Why?

Goons eat unprepared humans for breakfast. Over and over and over. At a particular point in the game, the alien goons killing humans far overtake the humans killing dretches.

With respect, try playing on a large server with good human players. It's not even slightly fun being an alien versus a solid wall of moving spam. The goal has to be balancing the game for the highest level of play because then it will be balanced for all of us. I can't stand playing on AKKA anymore because aliens only win there when humans screw up badly, and even then they usually manage drag the game out to exorbitant lengths.

[Kattana]

Good post Norfenstein, I used to see him on AKKA but I think he got tired of it being unbalanced

Now before anyone brings up the fact that FF is off on AKKA, aliens should not have to rely on humans killing each other to have an fair game, so dont even start.

I am not trying to nerf humans, I am trying to give aliens some way to counter the camping and force humans into doing some offense, the sit and wait untill S3 strategy works far too effectivly.
If you do not like my posts dont ready them Quaoar, every single one of your replys is an excuse to do nothing and keep your advantages as human.

[PHREAK]

Quaoar,
When was the last time you played as an alien?
Your comments are quite interesting when it comes to giving aliens any type of improvements. Why is that? Afraid the turret wont save your ass if the aliens get more balance?
Stating that more humans die to goons then dretches to humans is quite absurd and even funny.
They are goons (only few players come to mind) that can take 50+ humans during a game. Massive skill is required for such an acomplishment.
On the other hand, any moron can stand outside a hummie base, right next to the tesla and spam lucy down the corridor blindly. Same goes for pulse.
The only respect I have toward human players are the ones with the SG and mass driver since both of those require skill. Jettards, lucy spammers and (god I hate) flamers need counter messures other then tyrants in order for this game to become even close to balanced.
I'm my opintion, adv mara is the only balanced alien among all classes.

[Henners]

I play alien frequently. They dont need this upgrade.

The whole concept seems to be based around dretches "dying in large quantities at stage 1".

That betrays a fatal misunderstanding of how the dretch class works. The dretch class is an assassin stealth surprise attack creature. You arnt supposed to run in a horde to be cut down - thats just a sign of moronic players. Dretch can kill an unhelmeted human faster than an unhelmeted human can kill a dretch.

[Kattana]

They die in large quantitys in all stages, after stage one there are not many unhelmeted humans they can kill fast, and radar gets rid of any stealth they had. How to dretch work then if not to feed humans to s3?
Saying dretch can still kill them isnt much of a defense, any human that can point and click can gun them down easily with shotgun, or any of the rifles at that point.

[rasz_pl]

It's not even slightly fun being an alien versus a solid wall of moving spam.
...............
I can't stand playing on AKKA

You dont even know what your problem is, do you?
its FF OFF ! AKKA has FF turned OFF, that equals to human idiot hordes spamming lusyc like mad.
FF on, or even mirror damage FF solves that and makes the game balanced again.
I dont play on akka anymore, to lame with all that newbie spamming idiots.

Now before anyone brings up the fact that FF is off on AKKA, aliens should not have to rely on humans killing each other to have an fair game, so dont even start.

it is NOT about humans killing each other, it is about humans spamming like mad because _they can_. AKKA + ACTS = humans win 90% because
a they run to alien base and spam lucy
b tyrants die all the time because of some noob dretch blocking

They die in large quantitys in all stages, after stage one there are not many unhelmeted humans they can kill fast, and radar gets rid of any stealth they had. How to dretch work then if not to feed humans to s3?
Saying dretch can still kill them isnt much of a defense, any human that can point and click can gun them down easily with shotgun, or any of the rifles at that point.

not true, with FF on you can easily attack 2 BSs with a dretch and kill one, they will avoid firing on each other or kill each other and you get evos anyway

[Survivor]

Lately I just about only play on DB@ Derelict. It's a 12 player FF on, only has the beta maps and the teams both usually consist of experienced players, they're not all high level but they know what to do and what not to.
What you see most often is the team with the star players (who usually join aliens) winning. There are a few players who make the difference.
But no amount of skill can make you dodge a barrage. The only alien capable of that is marauder and then it still requires enormous amounts of experience to single out the weak spots and take out maybe one human or a building.
To be honest I would like to see the basilisk improved. It can crawl walls and hide better than marauders or goons. It just lacks punch for when it gets past the front and near the base. Oh and for gods sake don't aim for the legs. At least go for torso and don't complain it is THAT weak.

[WoodenJesus]

Basilisk is great and very fun alien to play, but when you cath someone you must jump on his head and then attack  :evil: And if you play basilisk you need low ping and no lags

[Norfenstein]

You dont even know what your problem is, do you?
its FF OFF ! AKKA has FF turned OFF, that equals to human idiot hordes spamming lusyc like mad.

Actually that isn't "the" problem. It might help to have friendly fire turned on but the game was simply not designed for it and it isn't really a complete solution. I said "spam" but that wasn't really accurate; the problem is when humans that can actually aim move in groups and know when to camp and when to attack (skill in other words). Aliens just don't have enough options available to them -- they're only built to fight single humans one-on-one. They need an area-effect weapon (like the zap could be if it didn't divide damage between targets) to break up groups and to assault bases. Smaller hitboxes would help too. And a basilisk that's better than dretches so people have a reason to stop using a 25 health class early in the game. The problem has almost nothing to do with humans.

[Quaoar]

Your comments are quite interesting when it comes to giving aliens any type of improvements.

It just seems like all the alien improvements presented are a direct attempt to take away an advantage that humans tend to define their gameplay with. It tends mostly to do with newbie dretches feeding.

I'm for the alien armor idea, and I'm also for letting aliens evolve in their own base no matter where a human is. I also think the alien tentacle thing isn't too bad, though it'd need proper limitation because jetpackers shouldn't become totally obsolete. I just don't think we should go down the list of human advantages and counteract them systematically.

Also, humans that purely camp can never win. You don't win on defense, and if S3 humans refuse to leave their turrets then the aliens can take their time getting to S3 themselves.

Plus, saying that FF should be on is not a cop out, as that is part of the gameplay dynamic. Humans need to watch where they fire, and it's all fair if you can get humans to shoot each other or their base in the crossfire, which is what both dretches and maras like to do. I consider that very fair, and leaving FF on also stops fire spam. Or, at least, penalty free fire spam.

With FF on, any group of humans WILL shoot themselves, if only a little bit. And a little bit goes a long way. I actually want to see if there are statistics for win/loss ratio when FF is on as opposed to when it is off. The only FF I've ever seen aliens do by accident is a goon pounce on a friendly, which happens less often than humans hitting each other. It might not always be an outright TK, but the loss of HP and also wrecking your own base trying to weed out a mara makes FF purely an alien advantage. And it's all fair.

Norf, aliens using the humans' own weapons against them seems like a fair strategy, and it certainly fits into the "fast, agile, and sneaky" template.

[Norfenstein]

Norf, aliens using the humans' own weapons against them seems like a fair strategy, and it certainly fits into the "fast, agile, and sneaky" template.

Sure, and I even enjoy human friendly fire myself, but it doesn't fix the balance. Expert players working together will not be affected by team damage and if you're not balancing the game for them then everyone might as well stop playing when one shows up on a server.

[Paradox]

Here is a rule of card.
Be good at the game before you complain.
Be good at both teams before you shit beans.

[rasz_pl]

To the "aliens too weak at xstage" crowd here is the best advice I can give you.
 At first I sucked as a human. I sucked so hard my team called me Monica Lewinsky. I would spawn, grab a light armor and run in general alien base direction. After few days I gave up and learned how to build good human bases, but mostly tried to always play alien (I rape n00bs as an alien like Bishop little girls). Then this funny thing happened. I was playing(A) with Xonya and some noobs against Nuriagi (Nuriaki? Nakagi? cant remember sorry, sounded Japanese but he was a Fin/Norway/other  scandinavian country ). I died _EVERY SINGLE TIME_ I saw him on my screen. Dretch/adv.mara/Tyrrant no matter, I just died. Now I'm not one of those "I want to my mommy,he has an AimBOT, BAN HIM BAN HIM" (hi DRG ) types so I was keeping my jaws shut. At one point I was sure he used medpack twice and got soooo pissed that i went to spec him (I was leading alien team so you get the idea how pissed I was). Following 5 minutes of specing him changed my life . Not only I dont suck as a human any longer, but I'm a LOT better alien now.

 So my advice to all you "too weak aliens" is SHUT THE F... UP and learn from better players

[Survivor]

Too weak aliens? No alien player in their right mind says aliens are too weak. It's just that at certain moments they lack appropriate response for the situation at hand.
I will never say aliens are too weak. In my hands most of my opponents think they are too strong. Thus I know that if even I am constantly having problems with a certain point; and I don't keep throwing myself in the same way at it, I'm a strategical player who constantly changes tactics; there is something wrong.

[|Nex|TrEmMa]

Aliens don't need help.  And if you "balance" it so they are reaching s3 before or at the same time as humans, humans won't have much of a chance.  Almost imperative for humans to end it before alien s3, otherwise it becomes about 3x as hard.

And aliens should always remember to attack; if all the humans are runnign around the map, chances are you can get into their base pretty easily.

[Paradox]

I have wiped out the whole human base as a dretch once, well, all the def anyway, then went marauder, and killed all the spawns, the dc, and armory. It was so funny. Humans were all s3 with Lcannon or Prifle and bsuits. They just relied on a single repeater next to a tesla coil with a med by the alien base, never running back to the old base. When we reached s3, every alien came out as tyrant, and mowed down the bsuits. It was so funny. Humans talking, giving us shit about sucking, then all of a sudden "OMG! No spawns!" ,"Who deconned?!", and"GG"

[Kattana]

Trema, aliens have advantage in s1, humans have advantage in s2, and s3 would be balanced if they didnt get to it twice as fast as aliens, if aliens dont have tyrants humans dont need luci.

Norf seems to understand best why im throwing all these ideas out here, humans have a huge assortment of weapons for all different situations, mg to kill dretches, shotguns for quick damage, lasgun for continuous fire, saw for buildings and anything getting close, mass driver to deliver damage accurately at range with no delay, pulse rifle for big damage and surpression, flamer for burning anything that gets close, chaingun for bringing down big aliens, luci for spam and sometimes killing things in 1 or two shots, they also get grenades to multi-kill and hurt buildings and scare aliens off, battery packs for ammo, jetpacks to fly, 2 types of armor, a helmet for radar, and I am still probably forgetting something.
Aliens get 5 classes including grangers, 9 if you count "advanced" classes as seperate, again including grangers, humans have more options than that just counting weapons.
Aliens attacks are also all basicly the same and involve running right up to the humans while being shot at with all those different weapons, not that that isnt usualy effective but sometimes it isnt enough.
Range really is a huge advantage alot of the time(like when camping), sure you can dodge a human and run in close but what happens when the guy next to him has a flamer? you are out of options.

[Quaoar]

Mara hop around the bastard and let him grill himself and his partner. Or shoot at him with an adv goon. Or just run him over with a tyrant. Or don't engage them face to face. Get more support, change class, or just live to fight another day. It's like me asking what I could do if I have a tyrant and an adv mara in my way and I'm just a larmored human with a lasgun. Sometimes you don't have great options.

[rasz_pl]

Mara hop around the bastard and let him grill himself and his partner

did I mention FF ? :]

[Quaoar]

Mara hop around the bastard and let him grill himself and his partner

did I mention FF ? :]

Isn't Flamer FF on always?

[Demonic Spoon]

The only time humans get S3 quickly is when aliens forget they are not ment to be fucking tanks.

I've had great success with a maurader. I've gotten like 8 kills at one time without dying one time. I didn't charge headfirst into a bunch of turrets.

I waited for the humans to come out of their base, then pounced, then GTFO.

Dretches are similarly played. Hit 'n run

Aliens are ambush-sneaky-ninja style. You aren't covered in armor, and you don't have a noble steed. Stop acting like a fucking knight.

[Pilo T]

yeah, I'm pretty new, but even I've adapted to alien play. People know that Aliens are Predators and Humans are Prey. That doesn't mean Alien wins an encounter in every situation. Aliens aren't meant to be agressive predators. You're supposed to wait around and stuff. Wall climb wasn't included so Aliens could get into the Human base using the walls, it was included so Aliens had more places to hide and attack from. If everyone on an alien team does this, then they'll be fine. If you wait long enough you can turn into a more powerful alien (you get points every so often just for being alive). I don't really know if Dragoon's are s1, but I do know that dretch isn't the only alien you get at s1, so if your team doesn't feed and waits for a better class to come along, then MAYBE you can coordinate some kind of attack, but sending dretches in is suicide. It doesn't take very long to build a machine gun turret, and it takes even less time for one of those turrets to kill a dretch. The only time I have trouble playing with this mentality is when other members of my team are retarded and go in anyway. It needs to be a team thing. If one person decides they're gonna be an alien Rambo it ruins it for the whole team. Just make sure everyone bides their time and evolves; pick off stragglers and take advantage of the alien's health regeneration. Bait and switch or hit and fade. I wouldn't mind if the alien class was changed or anything. I mean, the game will be more interesting as both teams accumilate perks, but I don't think the alien team needs to be buffed at this point; I think it's fine just so long as that's what it is a TEAM.

[|Nex|TrEmMa]

90% of it is who strikes first.

If you grab the first couple of kills, then it can be dragoons vs rifles.
If humans grab the fist couple, it becomes dretches vs shot/las guns.

Humans moving base also puts momentum in aliens favor provided they do something to capitalize on it.  If it's a flawless move, momentum goes to the humans .

Of course whenever humans lose momentum they camp.  When aliens do, they usually feed until they're overrun...

And always remember when the momentum is fully one way - it's easy to tip back if you know what you're doing.  A lone rambo can often change the whole momentum of the game and turn a hopeless team into one on the verge of victory.  They just have to know what they're doing and have a team that will capitalize on this momentum switch.

[Quaoar]

A great tactic for humans is to capitalize on their own camping. That is, if aliens have been on the offensive the ENTIRE time and are pretty much just pummeling the front lines, eventually they got cocky and there is NO ONE in the alien base. If you're going to go rambo, that's the time. Even if you don't make out that great (acid tubed), a good nade and some pulses into the OM will pretty much break their offensive when they rush back to defend themselves.

[Survivor]

Remember that only an attack on the om/reactor notifies the enemy team of a base attack. If noone is in sight and you have plenty of ammo destroy eggs instead of om. Far more effective in the long run since they can't change back to granger (and no, it's good and balanced they can't exactly because of this, defend people defend >:E).
If you need to break the offensive attack the om with a couple of rounds from the blaster.

[Henners]

Should always kill eggs before the OM anyway. That way its devasting when the OM goes down rather than a minor inconvenience....

[Survivor]

Most people still tend to go for the OM before the eggs. It's just a reminder for the new people.

[rasz_pl]

>Should always kill eggs before the OM anyway

1 not in SD
2 not if you have 3 tyrrants storming your base all the time
3 ...